Book Projects By You (Over 300 DIY & Craft Projects!)

As soon as we decided to number all the tips in our book over two years ago we hoped to someday create an online component where folks could upload their take on any of the projects along with the project number. And that day has finally come! So not only will folks be able to access this page right here, we’ll also be linking to it directly from our book page – so if you’re ever bored and want to check out a ton of reader submitted projects that have been completed after checking out our book (which will just keep growing over time) this post should eventually be chock full of them!

It’s sort of like a book-related Pinterest Challenge that doesn’t expire for over a year, so you can add away and come back to see what everyone else has whipped up too (you know we love to share the love!). And speaking of l-o-v-e, since there are about 500 ways to skin a cat, whether you’ve done something similar or put a totally new twist on something from our book, we’d LOVE to see it! Here are three of our favorites that readers have sent us/blogged about – and please feel free to upload yours underneath (which you can do even if you don’t have a blog)!

Project #120: Make Paint-Chip Art from Margaux & Steve at Young Nesters.

Project #147: Make Tissue Paper Art by a reader named Alise. She doesn’t have a blog, but she described her process as tracing the outline of a fish into tissue paper and cutting it out instead of making scallops/fish scales and then Mod Podging them to the canvas. I love the use of one orange fish in the group – just to make things interesting!

And now here’s the part where we tip our homemade hats to you guys and invite you to share your take on any of our book projects. If you have a blog you can just link up here, and if you don’t you can always add a link to a free photo sharing site like Flickr or Facebook with your pics (remember to set the photo to public so we can all see it). Here’s how to upload your project:

click on the blue “Add Your Link” button with the odd cartoon head at the bottom of this post (you might have to do some scrolling, depending how many projects are added)

in the URL field, add a link to your specific blog post about your project (not your home page) or the Flickr/Facebook link

where it says “name” write the project number (ex: “Project #114”) as opposed to your actual name, the name of your blog, or a description of the project

You just popped my bubble. Whomp, whomp. My blog partner/daughter and I were going to have a Young House Week in early January and feature our take on some of your projects each day. We had actually done several of these things before your book came out. We both bought your book and love it. You did such a great job, and it is SO you. Congrats, congrats!!! By the way, I commented several weeks ago that you would be on the NY Times bestseller least.

Aw thanks Janette! Why not do what you had planned on your site in January and then link up to it from this post when you do? The linky thing will be open for a long time, so you have all the time in the world (well not all the time, but over a year of it – haha!).

What a great idea! I’m sure it will be cool to see all the different takes on the projects, and get even more ideas and tips! I’m personally still crossing my fingers that Santa brings your book my way!

Awesome! It’s always fun to see what people come up with and the variety of ideas that one project can spark. I’m still waiting to get your book – it was on my Christmas list, so hopefully it will be under the tree! :)

As soon as I am out of the hospital next month, we’ll definitely be posting our project pics! Again, you guys are seriously keeping me distracted and focused, so when I’m back home I’ll share the love!

Sherry and John — I am squealing with excitement to see my fish art on your site. I literally have a perma-grin, which is what I had when I finished the project. Thanks so much for your inspiration — both in the book and on your blog. I started flagging more projects from your book last night.
~Alise :-)

Thanks, Jillian. This was done for my future nephew. My sister and her husband are avid swimmers and are going with an “under-water” themed nursery. Orange is my sister’s favorite color (so that’s a nod to her) but really I wanted to make sure my nephew remembers he is perfectly and uniquely one of a kind. :-)

And walking around the apartment in Pittsburgh, I realize I’ve actually done at least 3 of the smaller projects and never documented it as the holidays have steamrolled most of my blog plans. Will have to recreate some of the fun!

I’ve been inspired by the book (and your site) to semi-redo our kitchen. I’ve even ordered samples of tin ceiling tiles so we can pick out a color and pattern for the backsplash. I’m sure my husband would love to thank you for giving his days off meaning and purpose … and he shows it by rolling his eyes every time I talk about it. ;) http://slappyintheface.com/2012/11/old-house-meh/

Love this and already added my link for using a chair as a nightstand (inspired by you). Same blog post has a quickie quilt covered headboard (also inspired by you)!

Of course, I have lots more projects that were sparked from your book and I can’t wait to do a few more. Thanks for putting up this fun little linky party — I can’t wait to see what everyone else does!

Sorry I didn’t originally have the project # on my posted project link — I didn’t have the book with me and I was so excited to share. THANK YOU for updating it with the link number and not just deleting it! =)

you guys should moderate the links so people like #2 who completed the project/blogged it back in jan 2012 don’t just use the links to promote their own blogs. just saying as it’s annoying when things were done but not really inspired by your book.

Yes, this is annoying! The clay art stencil looks like it was done in 2010 and they just reposted it this week. :( I think you guys are going to have to moderate this unfortunately.
Also, really annoying that folks didn’t put the number in the subject line!

I think there are a lot of cool projects here, but they aren’t following directions of projects inspired by your book!

Not to worry guys! We’ll go through it when we have a moment and cull things down from time to time! Our only request is for people to share projects that truly relate to ideas in the book, just to maintain some semblance of order. Posts that were written before our book came out but that clearly relate to ideas that we covered in the book are cool (since many of these book projects aren’t ours to “own” and because the spirit of this post is just to share different takes on a bunch of DIY ideas!). Hope that clears things up!

Is there any way you could sort it by project? Before I scrolled down, I was picturing something like a header for each project and all of the reader versions of that project displayed underneath. I know that would be a ton of work to put online, but I think it would be much more interesting to look at- if a person wanted to do a particular project, they could easily see everyone’s take on it.

We thought long and hard about a system that we could manage/maintain for over a year while people submit projects… and this was what we thought we could code and keep up with while keeping the blog from crashing! I promise if we come up with something better we’ll upgrade it over time! But for now you can just peek at the pictures and click whatever looks fun (at least that’s how I do it, hahah!).

I agree, sorting by project would be much better. It’s kind of turned into a Pinterest Challenge apparently, everybody just putting up anything and everything. Maybe you need to start this over, and code it where it will ONLY take a number, so that it has to be linked that way.

So sorry Suzanne, we can’t recode it but we’ll go through and remove projects that aren’t related to the book and number everything so it aligns with our directions for submission. The spirit of this post is just to share different takes on a bunch of DIY ideas (whether they were done before or after us, as long as they’re related we think it’ll be a fun place to click around and explore). I wish we had the resources and time to create something that’s master coded and easier to categorize, but that would be a full time job for us to code/update/monitor – and we have projects to do to keep this blog going, so this is all just in the name of fun :)

You might have said this already but it is really easy to sort through for a specific number if you do Ctrl+F on your keyboard and then type in your search number. Having 243 separate sections/headers sounds like a whole other website…or book lol

I hope the bloggers have some concept of how ridiculously KIND and GENEROUS you are being with this. It was obviously not your original concept, just taken advantage of. You guys may be too nice for your own good! ;)

The Pinterest challenges are one of my favorite parts of your blog. I seriously look at every one!!! So this is right up my alley. Glad to see it will be up for a year. I’ll have to check back often. I’m excited that my school will be on Christmas break until the new year, so I can get started on my own book-inspired projects. I read your book cover to cover in less than 24 hours and bookmarked my favs. Hope to share them with you soon.

Quick question… Are they still thinking about adding more book signings to your schedule? I’m holding out for a Philly area one. I was hoping to see you in Richmond last weekend, but was bogged down doing report cards.

this. is. my. favorite. i mean, i’m not sure if i’ll know how to do it just yet, but my husband and i have made notes in a notebook (didn’t want you guys to see the book marked up on sunday at mongrel- haha) and we are SO ready to roll. we’re finishing up the laminate floor project this weekend so we can blog through the holidays! :) maybe i’ll actually update my blog AND do some YHL projects! here’s to getting through the handmade holiday first! :) Merry Christmas!

UPDATE: We added an update to the post to clarify, but our only request is to share projects that truly relate to ideas in the book, just to maintain some semblance of order. Posts that were written before our book came out but that clearly relate to ideas that we covered in the book are cool (since many of these book projects aren’t ours to “own” and because the spirit of this post is just to share different takes on a bunch of DIY ideas!). Hope that makes sense! We thought this would be a fun place to “collect” different takes on similar concepts – just for you guys to share, click around, and explore!

Okay — so I got a little carried away with my links (I hope it’s okay!!)…but I’ve been so inspired by you guys and all the talented bloggers out there for the past few years! It was exciting to see projects in your book we’ve already executed, and so many new ones to try out! Great job combining all the greatness in one hardbound spot!

This is such an awesome idea! I have already completed some of your ideas and have been itching to get crackin’ on some projects your book inspired! Thanks for always keeping the inspiration coming and for such a great link-up.

Yup, we’re going to go through them and relabel things that aren’t tagged correctly in the hopes that once folks see them laid out correctly they’ll continue to upload them that way! Since many of these book projects aren’t ours to “own” and because the spirit of this post is just to share different takes on a bunch of DIY ideas, we don’t mind if they’re from before or after our book came out, we just want them to relate to the book so it’s not a crazy jumble of unrelated links!

Hey Sherry, I’m based in LA and wondering if there are any updates for other tour dates? I’m even interested in a date for the PDX signing–I will meet you there! I kind of have my fingers crossed that you haven’t confirmed the PDX date cause maybe you’re working on other West Coast tour dates??? (Sorry if you’ve already answered this in the comments a million times.)

All the tour dates and times on our Tour Page (which you can see if you click the “our book tab under our header and then click the book tour box) are finalized and if anything changes or gets added we’ll update you guys asap!

You guys must be so proud to see how much you have inspired others. It’s really something. And the links to the projects ARE cool, but… I clicked on a few and one of the blogs that was listed a few times had an ad that was incredibly loud and too difficult to find to turn off. So I’m not sure how much browsing I will do in the future. I know that not every blogger can afford to be discerning, but I wanted to thank you guys for working with wonderful sponsors with great ads and inspiring products. As a reader, I can say, it makes a HUGE difference. It is one of MANY reasons that your site is so user-friendly.

Ok, I’m the kid in the class who got all excited and read the directions too fast. Thus, I posted a project (photo #86, I believe) with MY name on it, rather than the project name. My bad. You can take it down and I can repost it. I can’t undo it. Sigh.

Haha, exactly! We definitely don’t own the gradient idea, so it’s so much fun to open this link-fest up to people who tackled related projects, whether you guys shared yours while our book was in “gestation” or saw them in the book and later whipped them up :)

This will be great inspiration to look through! I just went back and made sure that anything I linked up that also used ideas from your book tips had a link to you and wrote down the tip #. Thank you for putting this up…..lots of inspiration from your book!!! It really is exciting that your book has already had so much success…..all your hard work is paying off! Very cool. :-)

I love this! I submitted mine early and didn’t read the instructions carefully enough so thank you for changing my ‘name’ to the right project #. I love your book! I did the initial look through the whole book and now I am going back through to really really read it. Great work!